I experienced a powerful bifurcated response to watching 30 Rock as a civilian this last Thursday. The critic in me felt like it shared many of the weaknesses of recent episodes and paled in comparison to shows from 30 Rock’s 2007-2008 heyday. The fan in me, however, wondered why that asshole Nathan Rabin guy who reviewed 30 Rock for TV Club couldn’t lighten the fuck up and stop hating on a show that was still pretty fucking funny.
Why did The A.V Club feel the need to build up, then tear down this beloved comedy institution? Oh yeah, because it was a corporate dictate laid down at the Legion of Hipsters, a sinister organization in which the skinny jeans-wearing, Decembrists-loving tastemakers of your nightmares decide to arbitrary smite some phenomenon in a fit of rage while elevating other unworthy figures to the level of Gods. I don’t want to give too much away but look for a Wire backlash and a surge of ironic appreciation for eighties boy bands in the near future.
Freed from the burden of high expectations and the responsibilities that come with always having to be so goddamned critical, it was much easier to appreciate the show. It was liberating not having to drag along all the baggage that comes with being a critic. I felt sort of the same way about this week’s Saturday Night Live. The critic in me realized that it wasn’t that good, that it was dumb and puerile and that they perhaps could have come up with an Avatar parody that didn’t revolve around the lead character getting sodomized with a giant gourd. Similarly, I'm saddened that they spoofed the Conan/Leno feud in a manner that didn't involve someone getting sodomized with a giant gourd. From now on, I would like for SNL to serve as the epicenter for the world's gourd-based sodomy comedy. Is that too much to ask?
But I kind of enjoyed it all the same, so I today I’m going to try something new: I’m going to forego a rigorous critical analysis and talk about the show the way we do at the titty bar where I hang out: it was kinda funny and Sigourney Weaver is still pretty hot. Crap! That only takes up three hundred words. So, how about that local sports team? How do you feel about their chances for the upcoming season?
Tonight’s episode began really the only way it could, with a cold open about the great Conan O’Brien/Jay Leno War of 2010. It was a perversely misguided and non-firing sketch. They brought back Darrell Hammond to do a really, really shitty Jay Leno, which seemed like a phenomenal waste. Really, Lorne, everyone and their fucking mother does a Jay Leno impersonation and this was the best you could muster? Ah, but Hammond was a cunning chameleon compared to a strangely off Bill Hader, who made a bold choice not to look or sound anything like Conan O’Brien while playing the red-haired cut-up. He just sat there with an icy glare and a decidedly un-Coco-like look of grim concentration.
Lorne Michaels, of course, created Conan O’Brien’s career, so perhaps it’s not surprising that the show seems to be treating the matter with kid gloves. It’s also interesting to note that as things at NBC get uglier by the moment the show was hosted by the daughter of a former NBC President, a fact that was clumsily acknowledged in Weaver’s plucky but uninspired monologue. Actually, that last fact wasn't interesting at all; I apologize for suggesting it was.